Former math teacher Elizabeth Harr is now running the
836-person Accident Fund, of Lansing, which is slated to open a new office in
the old Board of Water and Light Building on Ottawa.
The Accident Fund is expecting to add 500 new employees
to its new downtown facility bringing the company’s Michigan employee base to
1,200.
According to excerpts from the article:
Elizabeth Haar, chief executive officer of Accident Fund
Insurance Co. of America since 2005, said she "just kind of fell
into" the actuarial business.
"I thought I would get a job for a year to start
making money so that I could pay for my master's," said Haar, who started
as a pricing analyst at Michigan Millers Mutual Insurance Co. "I needed to
support myself, and I ended up liking it."
Few things since, however, have been accidents. Haar laid
out plans for her company, which has 650 workers in downtown Lansing, to move
into a new $182 million riverfront campus. The idled Ottawa Power Station will
be the centerpiece of the project.
The announcement was more than a year in the making, as
company officials debated whether the power plant or some other site would be
best for the headquarters.
It was Haar who made the announcement. The project will
make room for the company to add 500 employees over the next 15 years.
"In whatever room she's in, she's usually one of the
brightest stars," said Jim Epolito, her predecessor at Accident Fund and
president and chief executive officer of Michigan Economic Development Corp.
"She was my pick from a succession standpoint ...
she really proved her worth."
Read the entire article here.
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